Hidden Gems: Meet Patrick Murakami

Today we’d like to introduce you to Patrick Murakami

Hi Patrick, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
The ABC story is that I went from depression and suicide to business owner. The long road to discovery of one’s self is endless, tiresome and exhausting. Yet, it is also such a thrilling, exciting, and rewarding piece of the journey that we call life. Ten years before I opened an insurance agency, I tried everything. I worked on independent film, recorded a song, published poetry, acted for SpikeTV, and launched a YouTube channel that got unofficially sponsored by a huge toy retailer. I played video games on a competitive level, I live-streamed on Twitch hosting a digital open mic for art and artists. This and watching my spouse be a business owner taught me everything I needed to know about finding your own tribe and building a business.

Fast forward to mid-2019 and had left the insurance world behind for six months. I thought of everything else but insurance for business, so I decided to open up an insurance agency. Zero marketing experience, zero networking experience, and zero ideas of how I was going to provide for my family but determined to do so. Sometimes taking 40 coffee meetings a month, working late night hours and sacrificing family dinners. Meeting over 400 new people in the last 16 months, connecting people, helping businesses go from shut down status to earning an income, helping businesses sustain during COVID and helping people fire their boss. I feel like I’ve found my purpose. I launched a social impact business this year to align more with what I want to do, help people. I’m an entrepreneur at heart, a formerly jaded person by circumstance turned into an advocate and champion of people by calling. Nine podcasts, two YouTube channels, two LLC’s and millions of more people to connect with, I’m excited to see where this journey goes and where my family and I end up.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Every day is a struggle; every day, we fail. Understanding that failure is not an option, but how you fail and what you take from failure will always be the key component to success. To recover and have scorned to tell me that you attempted suicide used to be tough. People judge and people think that they’re going to catch whatever you have. I didn’t have a growth mindset; the corporate world’s growth mindset is very limiting. It has to fit into their box/agenda. Realizing that I was a bad employee, trying to find efficiencies. I introduced Voice over IP, mobile scheduling and online scheduling for overtime along with new payroll processes at Fortune 100 company. They took and implemented all of my idea’s overtime. One guy lost 350 million dollars on a billing overhaul project that didn’t even get completed. Yet, he was in a position to keep his job for utilizing on just some but all of my ideas. This trend would continue that I would supply great outside the box ideas to help others and not myself. When I decided to fire my boss, it would be for the last time.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Main Street Insurance-Patrick Murakami Agency?
Insurance agents are a baker’s dozen, meaning there’s way more than there should be. First thing you have to know that the average insurance agent is 59 1/2 and Caucasian. Less than 2% of the insurance industry is made up of Asians. You can imagine that means agency owners are going to be extremely low. I already stick out like a sore thumb. Our agency is non-traditional. We don’t sit in our office waiting for the business to come to us. We don’t pay for our phone to ring. Instead, we are boots on the ground connecting with people. We learn about our clients and their business’ on their level. We show up to as many home closings for our clients. We spend more time connecting and helping than anything; our agents are selfless. They believe that helping others in the world is going to come back to them. We work really well with a lot of our competition. Pairing up with others in our industry to know and understand who is open to collaboration allows us to work on bettering our industry. I’d always recommend an agent vs. an 800 number because you’re going to get more personalized service and build a relationship vs. being passed around. I am very proud of the culture that I am instilling into my team and that we have the integrity and the grit to decline risks that aren’t going to be good for our referral partners and our clients. If all parties don’t benefit, then we aren’t going to write it. People trust us because of that.

Are there any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
I share three secrets to my success, Faith, the law of attraction, and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I feel like every book stems from either the Book of Proverbs in the Bible or Think and Grow Rich. Nobody has ever said that they don’t get great value from Gary Vee or Les Brown or Tony Robbins and Joe Rogan really got the podcast thing going. There’s such a big need for inspiration and a growth mindset. I have a second LLC called 2 Native sons. It’s a social impact business designed to help people in a similar fashion to those I mentioned. We have a book, a podcast that we are actively making now. We currently do life on Wednesdays on FB and YouTube, called “The Dreamers Cypher.” It’s an unscripted dialog that’s open to people and the conversation can go from business and inspiration to coffee enema’s or “sunning” (naked yoga getting rejuvenation/sunlight through the anus. We are trying to find somebody in this community to give us more answers) You never know. We also do a bit where we highlight a small and local business. A lot of that has been with local restaurants and food trucks as of late. The real portion of the business is teaching people that they need to give themselves grace, but they also need to understand they have greatness in them. We take the business’ to the next level, whether its replication or duplication, building training courses, helping people fire their boss, etc. We teach people how to podcast and we do an advertisement.

Contact Info:

• Email: patrickm@themainstreetagency.com
• Website: www.patrickmurakamiagency.com
• Instagram: patrick_m_insurance 2nativesons
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/mainstreetpatrick